Many artists
clippings, studio floor 2021
My whole life is intertwined with finding and embracing heroes. Artists who have shaped me as long as I can remember. They are my advisors, my companions.
I must have been about 6 years old, when I saw my first George Stubbs. Unfortunately, not in real life, but on a postcard. I no longer have this postcard but the image 'Whistlejacket', c.1762, hangs in my studio. This painting, of the rearing horse, not only depicts the animal but depicts the strength and the emotion, everything my love for this painting and my love for animals stands for.
Never before had I had such a strong attraction when looking at an image.
The Louvre was an annual part of the holiday in my youth, and every time when I saw the painting of the crouched boy 'Jeune homme nu étude', 1836 by H. Flandrin, it felt like a reunion with an acquaintance, with a friend.
I remember the Louvre because of the stories I made during the car ride to Paris. I shared the stories silently with the castaways and savage women with bare breasts sitting in the back of the car.
When I was a teenager, I went to the Jeff Koons exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum, an exhibition at the time of director Wim Beeren. Jeff Koons showed me that anything was possible and allowed within the language of art.
Once at the art academy in the 90s, Edward Kienholz along with Jean Cocteau, Nan Goldin and Bruce Nauman crossed my path.
During the third year, Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois came on the scene. Cinema also became a very, perhaps most important source and advisor (the film movements Neue Welle and Nouvelle Vague, but also everything from Hollywood was reviewed).
Artist Servaas Schoone (daring and individuality) stood by my side in the third and fourth academic year. He was not only an advisor, he was my mentor. He has given me the no nonsense attitude but also the freedom to imagine language. As year teachers, Aernout Mik and Nan Hoover have shaped my perspective and attitude towards my visual practice. Pierre Klossowski completed the art academy together with Philip Guston. When writing these words about heroes and art, I remember my first visual contact with a painting of Guston: 'Painting Smoking Eating'. It must have been far before the studying at the academy, I can’t give words to the feeling and joy this painting and artist gives me every time I see it in “person”. But I’m not sure if I liked the painting back then.
During my year at Ateliers Arnhem, women like Sarah Lucas, Tracy Emin and Helen Frankenthaler came. Hesse and Guston stayed. The movie stayed. A studio visit by Daan van Golden gave me focus and tenderness regarding my subjects.
Over the years, most of the masters have stayed by my side, new heroes have emerged. Paul McCarthy and Francis Picabia joined me in my studio as critical speakers.
Perhaps I could name four artists the most important (only if I were forced to choose) for their daring individuality and imagination and because my work has direct relationships with many of their ideas. Picabia, Cocteau and René Daniels are always in conversation with me during my work process. Odilon Redon for its elusiveness.
A lot of contemporary artists “hang around” in my studio and in my head. Ellen Gallagher is one of them. But also, Laure Prouvost and Ana Navas, Neil Beloufa, Eva Rothchild, Nina Canell, Janis Rafa and Jon Rafman.
The masters ensure that the outcome of my ideas is not fixed. That I don't get bored within my medium and use of material. They are masters of imagining our thoughts.
I am aware that I forget to mention too many artists. Young contemporary artists, colleagues I admire and who inspire me.
The arts have a major influence on my daily life and my own visual work.
How to write an ode to this? I don’t have an answer.
Dieuwke Spaans, 2021
Dieuwke Spaans
Terra
2020
porcelain and Christal glaze
Ø 29 cm
private collection
www.tegenboschvanvreden.com/artist/dieuwke-spaans
rk